Sanitation
Sanitation is one of the key building blocks for development. Clean water and sanitation have been recognized as a basic human right by the UN General Assembly in 2010. The fact that WASH is the subject of dedicated targets within the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) stands testament to the fact that it plays a major role in public health and therefore in the future of sustainable development. Lack of access to suitable sanitation facilities is one of the major contributors and is linked to adverse outcomes such as chronic undernutrition. The most obvious manifestation of poor sanitation is the spread of faeco-oral infectious diseases, such as diarrhoea, which is among the most common complaints of infants and young children. Inadequate sanitation and hygiene are estimated to have caused more than half a million deaths from diarrhoea alone in 2016.
Investing in better sanitation can yield significant economic and social benefits by reducing the incidence of infectious diseases and preventing disability and early death. Better sanitation can also reduce healthcare costs, increase productivity, and lead to better educational outcomes because children who do not fall as sick as often, grow better and learn better. The relationship between improved sanitation and improved public health is one that the medical and health community has always been aware of.
It is only now that this is slowly coming to light in the wider public’s eye. The understanding and awareness that poor sanitation can lead to more illness is slowly increasing with the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan spreading across the country. The government’s deep political commitment and focus on the ongoing Swachh Bharat Mission presents a historic opportunity as the main goal is to help ensure clean cities in India with universal access to hygienic toilets as well as to improve the general quality of life in rural areas, promoting cleanliness, hygiene and eliminating open defecation. Aligned with Government of India initiatives, the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge (RTTC) was launched by GCI in 2014, to fund Indian researchers to develop and test innovative, safe and affordable sanitation technologies. Given the scale of the problem in India, the most effective solutions may be decentralized ones, such as innovative toilets that treat waste and state-of-the-art sewage treatment plants at the community level. Investing in developing technologies that can radically change the way municipalities and households manage human waste affordably, at scale, and with little or no need for water and electricity, is likely to provide immense improvements to the way we manage waste in India. This was the motivation with which GCI focused on this area, to leverage the expertise of our innovators and entrepreneurs to encourage them to solve this challenge. We at Grand Challenges India promote partnerships between researchers and private sector to develop and test innovations in the delivery of sanitation services, demonstrate innovative technology and design solutions, and build demand for new sanitation technologies. Decentralized sanitation technologies like the NEWgen waste system with eToilet and empowered septic tank are present alternatives that can be safer, more resilient, more cost-effective, and environment-friendly. With the improvements in coverage and access to sanitation in the country, there is now more need than ever for innovations in the sanitation space, and this will remain an important theme for GCI. Currently, the developed technologies are scaling up for commercialization.
Programs launched and funded under Sanitation
There is 1 program launched.
Reinvent the Toilet Challenge Phase I & II
Solving the sanitation challenge in the developing world will require radically new innovations that are deployable on a large scale.